A few weeks ago, I bought and started reading The World of the Crusades by Christopher Tyerman. I don't even remember where I saw the book recommended or what made it sound like a good idea, but I admit that the crusades have always been a bit of a gap in my overall layman's picture of history. What were they, actually, how important, and most of all why‽

This book is a bit dense though. While well made, written and illustrated, I rarely make it more than ten pages per night, before I fall asleep. The author has a tendency toward unnecessarily high-brow language but I think it is more the choice of which details to highlight, and the lack of connection between them, that makes it feel tedious to me.

Thus, I will put it aside for a while and dive into some lighter summer reading: The Culture series by Iain M. Banks, which I have heard many good things about over the years but never read.

From this book review:

Three hundred years ago, we burned wood for energy. Then there was coal and the steam engine, which gave us the Industrial Revolution. Then there was oil and gas, giving us cars and airplanes. Then there should have been nuclear fission and nanotech, letting you fit a lifetime's worth of energy in your pocket. Instead, we still drive much the same cars and airplanes, and climate change threatens to boil the Earth.
[...]

"Where is my Flying Car?", by J. Storrs Hall, is an attempt to answer that question. His answer is: the Great Stagnation was caused by energy usage flatlining, which was caused by our failure to switch to nuclear energy, which was caused by excessive regulation, which was caused by "green fundamentalism".

Counterfactuals are fun! I think I dismissed them too quickly as unknowable for a long time, but as with mot things, there can be better and worse arguments for how things could have turned out differently.

The environemntal movement is an interesting case, because what is considered good or bad in that context depends very much more on culture than on a problem solving strategy. The underlying conviction that human activity is inherently destructive leads to moralizing calls to give up things, that are not very effective. Whereas the obvious alternative is to improve technology to do more with less environmental impact. But that does not fit the narrative; to berate people and make them feel quilty lets one feel more morally superior and pure.

Would climate change never have become a problem, if the environmental movement would have empraced nuclear power instead of crippling it? No one knows for sure, but it certainly is interesting to think about.

I mentioned Scout Mindset, the new book by Julia Galef, just the other day. Now I am two thirds through the audio book, read by herself, and can wholeheartedly recommend it once more. It is quite close to what I expected from it.

One chapter is about calibrating beliefs, that is not only being aware of what you belive to be right, but also how confident you are about that, by assigning a probability to beliefs being correct. Then, in her own words:

Being perfectly calibrated would mean that your “50% sure” claims are in fact correct 50 percent of the time, your “60% sure” claims are correct 60 percent of the time, your “70% sure” claims are correct 70 percent of the time, and so on. Perfect calibration is an abstract ideal, not something that’s possible to achieve in reality. Still, it’s a useful benchmark against which to compare yourself.

She then provides opportunity to practice by answering trivia questions. This was more fun than I expected and you should click there right now and spend a few minutes on this!

I say this not only because it just so happened that I did well this time: My guesses about which I was 55%, 65%, 75%, 85% and 95% certain, turned out to be 50%, 67%, 80%, 100% and 100% correct, respectively. Probably a fluke. Full score sheet.

I had seen her TED talk before and had noticed her name pop up in my timeline on Twitter from time to time. But I admit I did not really have Julia Galef's work on my radar until recently, when I added her podcast to my rotation. So far it has been very good and I intend to check-out the large backlog eventually.

But first, I'll dive into the book that she just released: The Scout Mindset. See her Twitter for teasers, or listen to her being interviewed about it here.

I did not mention it in my Star Trek rewatch, but Julia is certainly right that Spock is not very logical, and quite annoying.

P.S.: See her explain Scout Mindset through activist examples in this video.

I finally read The Call of Cthulhu the other week. Considering it's impact on culture, this was certainly overdue. I had read a collection of Lovecraft's short stories some year ago, but this one was not among them for some reason. Needless to say it was a fun read and the quickly building atmosphere still works today.

And while at the topic of century-old monster stories, I also read H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds not long ago, with mixed feelings. It certainly has its moments and is propbably rightfully regarded as one of the most important works in science-fiction. But I found it tedious at times and too long for its own good, which is mostly due to its age, I guess.

Oh, one more monster: The Thing, the 1982 movie by John Carpenter, was quite entertaining! The gory practical effects hold up well enough and the atmosphere is intense. I think I never had seen this to the end before; if I don't misremember I started watching it in my late teens, but when it got to the scene in the dog cage I said "Nope! Not for me!" and turned it off before the monster reveal.

Recently, the book I have enjoyed most is Joe Henrich's The Secret of Our Success. The subtitle says very well what it is about: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. I found the interaction between culture and biology totally mind-boggling and think that this is one of those great books that synthesize different areas of understanding into a compelling narrative, in a very accessible and entertaining way. Here is a good interview with him, by Tyler Cowen, if you want to get a preview.
Henrich has a new book out, The WEIRDest people in the world (review by Dan Dennet), which I am eager to read - alas my copy is stuck in the mail.

If one takes "big picture" books as a genre, then Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel certainly is one of the most prominent examples. I had not read it until last year and liked it very much. I continued straight on to his follow-up Collapse but have so far passed on the latest one, Upheaval.

Why we Sleep by Matthew Walker did not leave a permanent impression on me, mostly because I needed no convincing that sleeping is important. I easily average 8,5 hours per night and generally sleep well. What really peaked my interest though was this fantastic blog post that goes though the first chapter of the book and finds a plethora of errors; very worthwhile to check out!

Back to cultural evolution. This View of Life by David Sloan Wilson was certainly interesting as well, but not as captivating to my brain as Henrich's book above. The question whether group selection is real or not gets mixed into the subject matter and I find the debate around this both confusing and semantic at times.

Last for today is Camus' The Plague. I stumbled upon my old copy, in German translation, which I must have read many years ago. But I remembered nothing of it when I started reading the other day. It is of course very well written, but also a bit dense, which is why I only progress a few pages every night in bed.

A few notes on my (not so) recent book diet.

The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures by Antinio Damasio. I really wanted to read that one after listening to this interview with the author, but I did not make it very far before I got bored. My bad! I might re-visit it some day. Related in the discussion of feelings is this podcast that I just listened to - quite interesting!

I must have mentioned before how much I enjoyed the 40th anniversary edition of Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, in which he reads the audio version of his current commentary, in dialogue with his former self. In the meantime I have read or listended to two more of his books: The Blind Watchmaker was good, but I liked The Extended Phenotype less, since it is written more for a more specialist audience and is very careful about details and nuances, which can make it tedious for laymen readers.

Stephen Fry has written (and recorded audio for) two books about ancient Greek mythology. Mythos covers the gods and creatures that were around before mankind came into play, and how all that came to be. The second part, Heroes, is about Hercules, Jason and their like, concluding with Theseus. Both are overall very enjoyable, not the least because of Fry's excellent reading.

I stumbled upon the semi-famous commencement speech by David Foster Wallace which is very much worth your time, if you don't know it yet. Prompted by that, I also read some of the essays in his collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, with mixed feelings. He certainly can write and has some good insight into the human condition, so I think I understand why he gathered a fan-base. But something bothered me with his writing, maybe it felt pretentious, overly showy, or I cannot quite put my finger on it. Still, the title story about his trip on a cruise ship was great fun!

Another book that I did not finish is Against Empathy by Paul Bloom. This is not because it is bad or I found it unconvincing, on the contrary! I just had heard him make the major points of the book in several podcasts (Sam Harris & Very Bad Wizards) and needed no more convincing than that to appreciate the distinction between compassion and empathy and that the side effects of the latter are too often neglected. So be sure check out the book, if that sounds wrong (or right) to you!

In my recent list of books I omitted the two that I have not finished yet. But even so, I am more than half-way through both and will most likely not find their remainders less excellent.

• Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene is of course a very famous book; and now even I know why. How selection pressure can steer behaviour in animals (us humans not excluded) is truly enlightening. I especially liked that the author co-reads the audio-version himself, which makes his included later commentary on the over 40 years old text extra entertaining.
• The Elephant in the Brain is written by Kevin Simler & Robin Hanson and was released earlier this year. It is about how unaware we are about our actual motivations. We deceive ourselves to get away with selfish acts while at the same time looking good and noble in our own eyes, and hopefully those of others.

I cannot put it into words yet how but the two books are very much related to each other. I mean in a deeper sense than that they are about behaviour.

In recent months I've been cutting down on my following the news cycle and social media, and on some podcasts. This has freed up time for some books to read or listen to. Here are a few that I enjoyed quite a bit.

• The Gene: An Intimate History by Mukherjee, Siddhartha.
• Sapiens and Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari.
• Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body by Daniel Goleman & Richard Davidson.
• If you are as skeptical toward "meditation" as I was, Sam Harris' Waking Up might convince you that it can be done without religious mumbo-jumbo.
• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World by David Deutsch.
• I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life by Ed Yong.
• Last, Compelling Science Fiction periodically publishes ebooks with short stories. Not all brilliant, maybe, but some quite compelling indeed.

It's not often that I treat myself with a fresh order of books - I've been consuming more ebooks and audiobooks lately. But after I finished Harari's fantastic Sapiens, I wanted the successor Homo Deus right away. If you havn't heard of the former, I can highly recommend it! It's a critical look at our species, from a more unbiased perspective than we are used to.

Then there is Medieval Uppland, a book that will hopefully give us some inspiration for summer excursions nearby. Last, How To Brew is the just-out new edition of what seems to be the homebrewers' bible. After skimming through it, there sure is enough detail to satisfy the needs of not-so-novice-anymore brewers. I'm currently waiting for my 11th batch to finish fermenting.